Outlook for iOS and Android gets new calendar integrations

Users of Outlook for iOS and Android now have new ways to get important reminders and events into their calendars, thanks to integrations that Microsoft unveiled Thursday morning.

The new Calendar Apps feature allows users to add reminders and events from Wunderlist, Evernote and Facebook into their calendars and view key information from those sources alongside calendar details from Exchange, Google Calendar and iCloud.

For Evernote users, reminders that they've set inside the note-taking app will show up in Outlook with a link to the note that they're attached to. If the user taps on it, they'll be taken to the Evernote app on their device to view the note in its entirety.

Wunderlist users will see their to-do items with due dates in their calendar, along with a link that will take them into Wunderlist to edit their reminders. Using the integration, people can also choose which to-do lists show up in their calendar and change the colors of the lists.

The Facebook integration lets users see their friends' birthdays, along with events that they've been invited to and those they've signed up to attend. By tapping on a Facebook event, users can change their response and view the event location and description.

While the integrations are cool, this is also yet another harbinger of Sunrise Calendar's impending demise. Integrations like this are a key part of the special sauce in that app, which Microsoft acquired last year. Microsoft is in the process of adding all those capabilities to Outlook so that it can shut down Sunrise Calendar.

Sunrise has a whole smorgasbord of other integrations that are currently missing from Outlook, including connections to Asana, Todoist, Trello and Basecamp. Microsoft has asked users to submit other integrations they want to see, so those capabilities may make an appearance soon.

The integrations are a heartening sign of what's to come from Microsoft, which has shown an increasing focus on integrating features from its competitors into its products. That focus may help attract users who rely on services that compete with Microsoft and serve as a net benefit for the company in the long run.

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